Fellow, SCAS;
Iso Lomso Fellow, Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study;
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of the Free State

Hybrid event.
Zoom Webinar: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65802739142 External link.

ABSTRACT:
In this seminar, I propose a framework for three types of recantation: political, ethical, and aesthetic. Political recantation implies the influence of an external force in bringing about a dramatic change of opinion. Apposite here are texts that take violence or coercion as their subject, or texts whose formal constraints serve as a gauge of oppressive conditions. Ethical recantation foregrounds the personal acknowledgement of wrongdoing or error; it is a 'palinodal' mode underpinned by humility. Despite apparently diverging motives, the first two types are dialectically entangled: humiliation (or its avoidance) is never without the effects of humility, nor is humility free from self-serving impulses. This duality comes out most clearly in the third category, aesthetic recantation. Ostensibly rejecting their earlier work, an author nevertheless secures that work’s legacy by calling attention to it. At the same time, aesthetic recantation may coincide with the intent to correct an inherited tradition by correcting oneself.